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#Masterchef Recap 28th July: If At First You Don’t Succeed

And we’re back, for the last elimination round before finals week. To nobody’s surprise, Dani and Ellie were the weakest contestants last night, and will be fighting for survival. That is, unless Lego-Head decides to use her immunity pin, meaning that she’ll get swapped out for Alana. Brutal!

Dani contemplating her choices

Tensions are high in the Masterchef house. Dani is pretending to have a tough time deciding whether to knife Alana. Alana, meanwhile, is pretty much reconciled to cooking tonight. Ellie explains that being eliminated would be bad. She can only cook in elimination challenges. That is a problem.

The judges are dressed for a funeral. The contestants aren’t, apart from their apron. On the balcony. Alana’s waiting for the axe to come down. Dani feels that this is the hardest decision she’ll ever make. Michael realises that it’s actually a very easy decision. Dani uses it, claiming not to be a bad person. You’re not fooling anyone, Dani. Alana looks completely unsurprised, and pretends to care about Dani’s feelings.

Alana isn’t happy about going up against the Eliminator. The challenge is ‘fix your biggest stuff-up’. This is a great challenge! I don’t know how the judges are going to pick Ellie’s biggest stuff-up, given that that’s been 90% of her cooking on the show. Alana’s been riding the middle of the pack the whole way, something that may well save her tonight.

Ellie’s fixing her appalling stuffed bell pepper from the Spanish challenge, described as ‘weird’ and ‘strangely unpleasant’. The judges struggled to come up with something for Alana – she gets her undercooked cutlets and spiced pears from her last elimination challenge. Too easy! I wonder what Dani’s biggest stuff-up would have been? So many options.

They have to use the same ingredients – Ellie is stuffed, her major problem was that she used bizarre ingredients. Alana has to make two dishes and gets forty-five minutes to Ellie’s seventy-five minutes. Ok, that’s a pretty serious handicap. Still, I have faith. Go Alana!

Kate won last night, so gets some kind of sweet reward! No, wait, she has to hang out with Matt Moran. They’re making seafood. She doesn’t even get to leave the Masterchef house! She looks pretty underwhelmed in the commentary box.

Do not invite this into your house

Back in the kitchen, Ellie’s off! She has scrapped her terrible bell-pepper. Alana is using her spare time to stare blankly at Ellie and plot her death. Or plan her dish, whatever.

Ellie’s making orange icecream. Michael already thinks that she’s cooking it wrong. Everyone, including Ellie, is pretty sure she’s not going to get there in time. George tells her she’s got an hour and calls her Allie again.

Finally, Alana’s off! She’s making the same dishes again, just without undercooking everything. Ellie is now making crème caramel, but she’s using whole eggs. Dani tries to help. She confuses Ellie and makes Alana hate her more. Ellie moves on to overcook her crème caramel. Meanwhile, Alana’s going great guns, with thirty minutes to go. George comes and explains to Ellie that she’s really stuffing up. She responds by stopping and staring vacantly. Poor little idiot.

Fifteen minutes to go, and Ellie is sulking. George comes to assess the fat on Alana’s cutlets – too much, apparently. Her first road block of the night. Gary’s also worried about the heavy marinade. Dani’s also worried about it. Didn’t shout advice to her. Ellie’s icecream is delicious but incompetently made, characteristically.

After the ad break, Dani will not shut up about Alana’s fatty cutlets. A girl can take that kind of talk seriously, Dani. Meanwhile, Ellie is failing to cut up an orange properly. She has to go.

This is not that hard

Five minutes! Alana’s got her lamb plated, but Ellie’s crème caramel are still in the oven. Sure enough, they’re wildly overcooked. Ellie asks Dani for help. Why? Dani is no help. Somehow, Ellie produces a perfectly plated crème caramel. Nobody is more surprised than Gary.

With a minute to go, Ellie is in a frenzy while Alana is calmly plating. Ellie thinks her inability to organise herself is a skill. She better not win. Ellie cannot believe Alana has made twice as much in half the time.

Judging time. Ellie’s crème caramel with orange ice-cream and citrus salad looks okay, I guess. She hasn’t so much ‘fixed’ as ‘abandoned’, but whatever. Her icecream is delicious, the citrus salad is okay but badly done, and her crème caramel is somehow perfect. Wait, no, it’s too eggy. What’s that sound – no, it’s victory music! Nooooo. Ellie is proud of herself for learning something. Anything.

Very different from her school experiences

Alana’s lamb cutlets and poached pears are next. They look beautiful. She has actually fixed her dish. Gary pretends that is the wrong choice. Gary cuts into the lamb and it explodes.

After yet another failed attempt to get me to buy a Telstra T-Pad, we find out that Alana’s lamb is far too fatty, but the meat is well cooked. The salad and the dressing are delicious. The lamb fat makes Gary feel unhealthy. Don’t think it’s just the lamb fat, Gary. Her pears, however, are perfect! C’mon Alana.

Decision time! George badges the challenge as a second chance to re-cook a dish again. Wait, what?

I had no idea George could travel through time and space

Ellie is sad about doing a degree she doesn’t like. You’re twenty-one, Ellie – stop learning to be a nurse (please, you would kill someone) and go and do an apprenticeship.

She may well have to. After twenty-odd eliminations, Ellie is going home. Alana is safe! We see a montage of her smiling, looking cute, and occasionally winning elimination challenges. Plus that brief moment of competence in New York. George creepily flirts for one last time, and Alana tells her to go and get a job.

Back in the Masterchef house, everyone’s making canapés. Dani visibly fears for her life when Alana returns. Ellie has written a nice letter, which makes Kate sad as it reminds her of her eight year old daughter.

Ellie’s welcomed home by a party of people who don’t look old enough to drink. The gaggle of teenage girls squeal at a pitch that can only be heard by dogs. Since leaving Masterchef, Ellie’s started doing work experience at Rockpool. She hopes it will lead to an apprenticeship! Good on her, that’s actually an excellent life choice.

Maybe there is some justice in masterchef afterall with the elimination of ellie. It was a foregone conclusion that dani would use the immunity pin which she won cooking off against the swimmer but even george et al couldn’t contrive to get ellie through when her repair of the disaterous spanish invention test was a creme caramel and ice cream which left out major ingredients in her box and had little spanish about it. With 30 minutes more than alana it would have been a complete travesty if ellie had prevailed although george kept trying with a sinister look at alana while slicing off the ëxcess fat” from one of alana’s lamb cutlets.
Is it too much to hope that we see the back of dani early in finals week or will that be just too much credibility for this season of masterchef to swallow?

Oh Gastrognome thanks SO MUCH for the snake photo of Moran!! As soon as my husband and I heard last night that the winner’s (Kate’s) reward would be a one on one with Matt Moran we straight away looked at each other and said “shuck it to me would be thrilled with the snake reward!” And you forgot to mention about Allie’s completely crap running style highlights! Good result anyway. What are you going to re-cap when it’s all over????

Gastrognome – your recaps are seriously the highlight of my day. Although my colleagues are a little put off by the hysterical giggling emanating from my desk. Please please recap The Renovators. There is some even more amazing material for you to work with there!!